1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an active oxygen management, fire encirclement, and operational verification system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an integrated system having both centralized, distributed and individual intelligence for active oxygen management, testing, monitoring, and reporting on the operating condition of multiple fire doors which are individual or networked together and distributed across multiple locations in a building or complex. Further, the invention provides for automatic operational testing, monitoring, and reporting on a condition of each of the fire doors in the system.
2. Description of the Background Art
In commercial, industrial, residential, public, and multi-family residential buildings, fire doors are widely used to separate different parts of the building from one another to protect those building sections and their occupants from damage and loss of life caused by the spread of fire, smoke, heat, and super heated or toxic gases, to adjacent areas of the building. These fire doors are generally of four different types: swinging, overhead rolling, sliding, and bi-folding, or a combination such as rolling and swinging acting in unison and designed for both human and vehicular traffic. Smaller doors such as counter shutters, duct dampers and drop panels allow material to pass through firewalls or provide an avenue for ventilation. All these fire doors typically close off building spaces or sections and protect against the spread of fire for rated periods from (20) minutes to (4) hours. The closing of these doors must occur in the absence of building fed power systems, since electrical power may be lost due the fire itself or contributing factors, such as an earthquake, or an explosion, etc.
These fire doors of the background art are activated to close by several types of inputs.
1. A local melt-away fusible link can be provided. When excessive heat is present, the link will melt and release a holding mechanism that then allows the door to close.
2. Local Smoke detectors (with or without battery back up power) can be provided that send an electronic signal to the fire door that initiates the automatic closing cycle. The activation of a detector and door controller may trigger additional doors in the local network of doors to close as well, such as all the doors on a firewall or opposite doors on a firewall.
3. A hard wired non-local building smoke and fire detection system can be provided. The non-local system can actuate the fire doors by ceasing to transmit a constant electrical signal that is normally provided to the door on a 24/7 basis. Whenever fire and/or smoke is detected in the building, the non-local system will remove the signal and cause the fire doors to close. Also, a loss of electrical power will cause the doors to close.
4. Hard-wired central computer driven smoke, fire and security systems that send a signal (or the removal of that signal) to the fire doors in the building to actuate their closing cycle are employed in more sophisticated buildings (and ships).
Existing fire door products are based on several basic closing methods to effect closed-door fire protection (also smoke, heat and super heated or toxic gas protection). They are:
1. Swing doors: These openings are normally closed by spring driven arms and rotating spring force closures that are governed and speed controlled by hydraulic, closed end control mechanisms. These spring driven closures force the door closed when the power is removed from an electromagnetic hold open device powered by the building electrical system and actuated by one of the four methods listed above.
2. Rolling overhead doors: These openings are closed by gravity-driven mechanisms (sometimes with spring assist) or battery back-up powered electrical motors activated by one of the four methods listed above. The current one (1) million (USA) gravity driven fire doors that require resetting by a trained technician have a 30% failure rate to close when signaled, as estimated by the American Rolling Door Institute.
3. Sliding, side coiling and accordion Fire Doors: These openings are closed by gravity with weights or with spring assist systems, and are speed controlled by mechanical governing systems.
4. At present none of the fire doors described above operate based on a built in electronic logic controller. At present, none of these fire doors have the intrinsic ability to communicate with one another using an electronic logic control system. At present, none of these fire doors have the intrinsic ability to communicate with one another over wired, wireless, and Internet connections built into their control design. At present, none of these fire doors above have the intrinsic ability to close in concert with one another to isolate specific building areas to prevent the spread of fire beyond a specific programmable area determined by a high cost, a high end building fire isolation plan, or a “one drop-all drop” hard wired drop control system.
A. At present none of the existing fire door on the market have the intrinsic ability to prevent the spread of smoke by closing in concert with one another to isolate specific, programmable areas of the building to prevent building damage, injury and loss of life by following a built in, programmable smoke isolation plan.
B. At present, none of the fire doors in existence have an intrinsic logic-driven electronic system for preventing the spread of fire, smoke, toxic gas, biological contaminants, etc. by the use of a specific, programmable locally programmable oxygen management system.
C. At present, none of the fire doors in existence have an intrinsic logic-driven electronic system to alert firemen as to the integrity of a closed oxygen managed fire area.
At present, none of the fire doors in existence have an intrinsic logic-driven electronic system to alert firemen that they are entering or are about to enter a closed oxygen managed area.
D. Finally, at present, no fire doors exist in the market that have a integrated, built-in system or controller for the automatic testing and verification of an operational capability for a fire, smoke, gas, oxygen management control program.
In summary,
Existing fire doors                1 Do not report their UL test results.        2. Do not display their last test date.        3. Do not display their operational status.        4. Do not calculate their closing speed and generate UL PASS and FAIL data.        5. Do not report pass/fail and test results to any central authority or interested party.        6. Do not report independently and directly to insurance carrier.        7. Do not alert firemen that they are entering Oxygen Management Area (O2 MAN AREA) and potential back-draft hazard.        8. Do not network with “distributed intelligence” so that the loss of one node does not compromise the entire system.        9. Are not run by networked programmable door controller (PLC's)        10. Are not run by networked programmable door controllers communicating with a central controller for displaying operations status, test results, local fire conditions and other abnormal conditions of the networked doors.        11. Cannot display generate or transmit message that fire is encircled or not and if not, which unit failed to close and provide floor area and location information.        12. Cannot adapt to failure to close on one or more nodes and shift O2 Management Area to a wider circle and display corresponding messages.        13. Cannot perform system operation tests simulating heat and/or smoke detection on any node, generate test results (close verifications), pinpoint deficiencies and manage maintenance.        